Happens in a lot of places. My own home town's Board of Ed is constantly bemoaning lack of financing. Got 'em to shut up for a couple years after we caught them holding Board of Ed meetings in expensive restaurants.

This is why it's better to work for a successful privately held company. At least then you only get the CFO's eye-roll when you submit expense reports with first class air tickets and $1,000 meals for four.

Why anyone working for a municipality, however, especially a shiathole like Baltimore, would think that was okay is anyone's guess. At least we actually earned our extravagances.

Me at the latest school board meeting where they were going to try to cut arts, sports, and music program funding because of "budgets."

"I noticed there are still about $75,000 in "discretionary spending" for the superintendent and the school board. If we are cutting programs, administrative staff should have $0 for discretionary spending. That $75K needs to be diverted to schools for the programs under discussion here."

* crowd rumbles in agreement

They managed to save those programs, but they also managed to keep their slush fund.

minoridiot:$500 / 16 people = roughly $31 / person. Sounds like they got out of Fogo de Chao cheap.

I very nearly OD'ed on meat the last time I was at Fogo de Chao. I wasn't hungry for a week.

I wonder if that was lunch or something. Last time I was there it was $50 a person to eat minumum. I treated my parents and sister in Minneapolis. We all drank water and shared 2 deserts. The bill was almost $300 after the tip.

"School officials typically stay where the conferences are held, which sometimes means costly hotels. For example, one school board member traveled to Memphis, Tenn., last year and stayed at the Peabody Hotel, a favorite of country music stars that starts at $300 per night. Another board member's stay at the Westin Copley Place Hotel in Boston totaled $1,800 for four nights, statements show."Sounds about right, I'm a lowly employee and my hotels rooms cost 180-220 a night at conferences.

The board also met with Alonso in April of this year over a $735 dinner at the Capital Grille, which nine people attended.735/9 = about $82 per person. Entree 30-60, drinks 8-12, apps 8-10 a person, + 18% tip

"Among those transactions were a $450-per-person office retreat at the downtown Hilton, during which the 16 employees of the Information Technology Department were also treated to a $500 dinner at Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao; and a $264 lunch for students at Hooter's."450/person retreat? Sounds about right. 100 for catering, 50 for transportation, 100 for room rental, and 200 for speakers500/16=31.65 From what I remember Fogo is pretty damn expensive. Their salad bar alone is $18 (and shiat i might add)Take a group of kids to a restaurant and you will spend 200+ no matter what you do. lets estimate 10 kids (264/11 people = $24 a person. $12 burger, $2-3 soda, $4 apps, tax and 18% tip)

Receipts show that several of the cardholders paid hundreds of dollars in sales tax, though the system is a tax-exempt organization.Morons.Also,you can file a form to get the sales tax back as a refund if you forget or cant get except status.

This though is BSOberlton, whose controversial $250,000 renovation of his executive suite was detailed by The Sun earlier this year, declined to comment through a city schools spokeswoman.Really? How much work did you really need to do?New lights, carpet, desk and paint cannot be over $100,000. What did you do, add a window??

One cardholder charged $97,000 worth of student leadership grant funds to the card to take students on several trips out of town.Yeah...that isn't what the card is for.

SmellsLikePoo:minoridiot: $500 / 16 people = roughly $31 / person. Sounds like they got out of Fogo de Chao cheap.

I very nearly OD'ed on meat the last time I was at Fogo de Chao. I wasn't hungry for a week.

This is why I came into the thread... Glad it was the Weeners.

"Ohhh $31/ person... look at the big spenders"

How much money and time was wasted reviewing this expenditure? Nothing in the article screams abuse.

This is actually one of the things I do. I spend 6-8 hours every month processing P-card expenditures for a business that brings in about $20B in revenue a year. Thousands of employees with P-cards. But really, when you make use of MCC codes and job descriptions it is really easy to automate almost everything. And for what it is worth, I identify a handful of fraud misuse of company funds each month, but more importantly I provide detailed feedback on purchasing trends. Attention to that detail is saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. So no, it isn't hard to control these things, but you do actually have to do it instead of talking about it.

This is why everyone needs to pay attention to their local school boards, municipalities, etc this admin skimming is rampant. I remember reading an article a few years back that while camden city school district got the same amount of funding as other richer districts the students still got less money per head. Why? The admins were taking it all.

In my home county they televised the local town meetings, it was like parks and recreation but not funny. :( The mayor hired a town manager, that didn't lived in another state, for something like 100k a year to manage the county. I thought that was the majors job. Oh and she got arrested for fraud or something (can't remember her name, I've spent some time googling it but it's been about 5 years now so there may not be a digital archive).

Also all the local politicians had government day jobs in another township, county, or state so they could collect 2 pensions when they retired.

/The line I will always remember her saying "It's not a bike trail it's a bike ROUTE!"//Bristol Township, pa - suburban white trash central!///Thank god I moved away

Nezorf:This though is BSOberlton, whose controversial $250,000 renovation of his executive suite was detailed by The Sun earlier this year, declined to comment through a city schools spokeswoman.Really? How much work did you really need to do?New lights, carpet, desk and paint cannot be over $100,000. What did you do, add a window??

You forgot the bathroom with jaccuzi for him and his secretary and the kickbacks